• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.52-56
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• 2011

Objectives: The occupational accident rate was officially reported to be 0.77 per 100 workers in 2001 and 0.70 in 2009. The stagnant decrease in accident rate raises a question about the effectiveness of prevention activity because there have been active prevention efforts in the past 10 years. It is also necessary to know the exact status of occupational injuries to direct a prevention strategy. Methods: The author re-analyzed occupational injury statistics to find the reason for stagnant decreases in occupational injuries. Compensated occupational injuries cases were used to calculate fatal and non-fatal injury rates. Injuries from commuting accidents and sports activities were excluded as well as occupational diseases. The number of workers was adjusted to that of full time equivalent employees. Results: The fatal injury rate excluding injuries associated with commuting accidents, sports activities, and occupational diseases decreased from 12.59 in 2001 to 8.20 in 2009. In 2007, 67.5% of accidents that involved being caught in objects, which are mostly caused by machines and equipment, occurred in the manufacturing industry; this type of incident has decreased since 2001. The fatal and non-fatal injury rates in the manufacturing industry have continuously decreased while the rates in the service industry have not changed from 2001 to 2009. Non-fatal injuries might not be reported in many cases. The number of insured workers was underestimated as long working hours were not adjusted for in the reporting system. Conclusion: The occupational fatal injury rate has decreased and the non-fatal injury rate might have decreased during the last 10 years, although the statistics show stagnancy. The decrease of the injury rate was countervailed by various factors. Hence, the current accident rate does not reflect the actual situation of accidents in Korea. Korea needs to develop an improved system to more accurately calculate occupational fatal and non-fatal injury rates.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.118-122
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• 2024

To understand biosafety's current situation in laboratory animal research and risk factors affecting occupational health. Compliance surveys were conducted by questionnaire via Questionnaire Star (an application app on the Internet) in Chinese. Thirty-nine anonymous questionnaires were collected. The surveyed institution has established 24 types of ABSL (Animal Biosafety Laboratory) and biosafety management organizations and systems equipped with safety equipment. Our study also suggests that the principal of the laboratory establishment fails to perform supervision and inspection responsibilities, the inappropriate design of the animal biosafety laboratory, non-standardized personnel training and health management, non-strict waste management, and insufficient emergency management. The administrative department and work units should address certain safety and occupational health risks in laboratory animal research. The author proposes control strategies based on organizational guarantee, personnel management, emergency management, etc., to help prevent risks and ensure occupational health. Due to regional limitations and small sample size, the results may not be generalisable to all parts of the world. However, some of the key common issuesmay also be present in other regions, sowe believe that this research still has some relevance.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.78-87
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• 2010

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify the effects of occupational health service(OHS) for the aged workers in small workplace. Method: A single group of pretest-posttest design was used. 608 aged workers of 253 small workplace who had one out of 4 risk factors were randomly selected. The OHS consisted of education, medical checkup, and counseling. Also information was provided by a visiting nurse 4-5 times every 4-5 weeks from March to November, 2009. The data were collected by interview, self report, and monitored by a nurse. Results: The OHS led to significant reduction of the mean systolic and diastolic blood pressures of 6.46mmHg and 5.22mmHg, each respectively. The mean total cholesterol, glucose, and BMI were also reduced significantly by 6.35mg/dL, 5.91mg/dL, and 0.31kg/$m^2$. And stages of health behavioral change were moved from 1,2,3 stages to 4,5 stages significantly. Conclusion: The OHS showed an effective intervention to improve the aged workers' health in the small workplaces. Therefore, The OHS by visiting a nurse can be a good strategy to extend to small & medium-sized companies having no in-site health manager.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.105-121
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• 2011

Objectives: This paper presents the framework and protocol design for a construction industry risk management toolbox. The construction industry needs a comprehensive, systematic approach to assess and control occupational risks. These risks span several professional health and safety disciplines, emphasized by multiple international occupational research agenda projects including: falls, electrocution, noise, silica, welding fumes, and musculoskeletal disorders. Yet, the International Social Security Association says, "whereas progress has been made in safety and health, the construction industry is still a high risk sector." Methods: Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) employ about 80% of the world's construction workers. In recent years a strategy for qualitative occupational risk management, known as Control Banding (CB) has gained international attention as a simplified approach for reducing work-related risks. CB groups hazards into stratified risk 'bands', identifying commensurate controls to reduce the level of risk and promote worker health and safety. We review these qualitative solutions-based approaches and identify strengths and weaknesses toward designing a simplified CB 'toolbox' approach for use by SMEs in construction trades. Results: This toolbox design proposal includes international input on multidisciplinary approaches for performing a qualitative risk assessment determining a risk 'band' for a given project. Risk bands are used to identify the appropriate level of training to oversee construction work, leading to commensurate and appropriate control methods to perform the work safely. Conclusion: The Construction Toolbox presents a review-generated format to harness multiple solutions-based national programs and publications for controlling construction-related risks with simplified approaches across the occupational safety, health and hygiene professions.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.85-93
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• 2015

Construction sites have various risks, and safety managements are enforced based on the law such as Industrial Safety and Health Act, etc. Safety management by the law saves lives and preserves health of workers by removing and understanding risks in advance. When the emergency situation has come, poor response causes loss of lives and physical damages. This study suggests basic strategy that can mitigate the industrial disaster in all construction sites. A survey was conducted to identify the current safety consciousness and to evaluate first aid ability of coworkers. Finally, four measures were suggested: (1) designating muster points; (2) hiring occupational health managers; (3) increasing the first aid ability of coworkers; and (4) carrying safety brochure. The proposed suggestions can be helpful in mitigating the construction disaster, and in responding the major accident efficiently within a short time.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.73-79
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• 2011

The growing interest in nanotechnology has resulted in increasing concern and a number of published environmental and workplace measurements for assessing occupational exposure to engineered nanomaterials. However, the amount of previous exposure data remains limited. Furthermore the data available was collected with extensive variation in terms of exposure measurement strategy, which limits the ability to pool the data in the future. In response, this paper reviewed several pertinent issues related to exposure measurement strategy to suggest a harmonized measurement strategy which would make exposure data more useful in the future, e.g. correlation between exposure metrics, relationship between activity and exposure, task-based or shift-based assessment, background concentration, limitation of personal exposure monitoring and other determinants of exposure/modeling. An improved sampling strategy for nanomaterial exposure assessment should be considered in order to maximize the use of the data from various real time monitoring instruments.

• 대한예방의학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2000.10a
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• pp.298-299
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• 2000

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.313-323
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• 1998

This study is to develop the model on the joint employment system of occupational health nurse practitioners for medium or small sized enterprises in Korea based on the comparison opinions between employers and occupational health nurses (OHN). The data were collected by questionnaires from Oct. to Nov. in 1997. The number of subjects was 210 OHNs and 176 employers, response rate was 47.1% for OHNs and 23.2% for employers. The SAS PC program was used for the descriptive statistics. The results were as follow: 1. More than three years career was preferred for qualification of OHN by employers and OHNs. OHNs preferred that all instruments and materials should be equipped in each industry, but employers preferred that they should be equipped by OHN. 2. For the limit number of industries and employees per one OHN, employers preferred average 2.25 industries and 307 employees, OHNs preferred average 3.0 industries and 448 employees. Both of them preferred two times visit per week for all day long. 3. OHNs wanted that the local office of Ministry of Labor could act as mediator, but employers preferred direct contact individually. For the average wage, employers preferred 887,000 won per month, but OHNs preferred 1,960,000 won per month. 4. OHNs preferred the Korean Association of Occupational Health Nurse as the recruit agency. Finally, employers and OHNs have the opinions that they can choose this system depending on the condition. There is in need of development of effective strategy for this new system such as manpower development, cost-benefit analysis, establishment of occupational health service standard, advertisement for employers, and government supported project.

• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.75-84
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• 2016

Objectives : The aim of this study was to compare a treatment focusing on the physical function to an intervention focusing on a cognitive strategy in stroke patients which improves their performance skills of daily activities. Methods : This study design was a randomized control trial selecting 43 people with stroke patients. This study consisted of a control group, which received conventional occupational therapy focusing on physical function, and an experimental group which was trained to develop a cognitive strategy by themselves. Both groups each received 10 sessions of the treatment. This study compared the skills for performing daily activities before and after the intervention and analyzed the data with SPSS Ver. 18.0. Results : This study showed a significant improvement in all performance skills in the experimental group (p<.05). There was no statistically significant difference in the performance skills before and after the intervention in the control group (p>.05). Conclusions : It was verified that stroke patients to develop a cognitive strategy by themselves is more effective than to improve the physical function in performance skills for daily activities.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.70-77
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• 2010

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to analyze effects of cardiovascular disease prevention in small scale enterprise using community-based approach. Method: The target work site included 4,050 small scale enterprises which were under 50 in non-manufacturing workplace and total 20,986 employees were enrolled. Data collection was conducted from March to December, 2008 by 46 occupational health nurses who were registered in Korean Association of Occupational Health Nurses. Results: The rate of smoking was decreased from 39.9% to 34.6%, and normal BMI group was increased from 61.6% to 64.0%. Evaluation of post-intervention blood pressure(BP) outcomes revealed that significant reductions in systolic BP and diastolic BP(3.25mmHg and 1.89mmHg, respectively) were achieved. In addition, the amount of reduction in total cholesterol level was $180.89{\pm}28.22mg/dL$ at pre-ntervention and $177.71{\pm}24.73mg/dL$ at post-intervention. Conclusion: Cardiovascular prevention program by community-based approach was an effective strategy for quitting smoking and improving BMI, BP, and cholesterol control.